14th March 2026

I woke up today full of energy and in the mood to cook. I had a couple of recipes I wanted to make for padkos tomorrow, brownies, feta and caramelised onion tarts and cheese puffs.

I have been working on a cheese puff recipe and this was my final test run before it can go up. The only disagreement being size. Woolies puffs are more canapé size (which is good if you are driving) and my final version is more Greggs steak bake slice.  To be honest, either are fine so I think I will just put it up and say you can make either size.

The brownies are from Nigels book (the cookbook club month continues).

These were nice but most definitely not the best brownies I have ever made or eaten. 

Although it was not a difficult recipe, I am so used to melting the butter with the chocolate and having that glossy loveliness to start with that I did find the method of creaming the butter and sugar odd for but I followed nonetheless. I obviously melted my chocolate in the microwave, no bain marie for me - the micro is much easier as long as you remember short bursts and stop with a few lumps left.  The batter was really more like a cake batter rather than a brownie batter as it was stiff and thick (brownie batter tends to be glossy and more mousse like). 

I thought they were ok (most chocolate cakes are perfectly edible lbh) but Rhona liked them and said they tasted good. Matt obviously munched through them regardless with no complaints but said he prefers the other recipe better.

So nice, but not enough to be the go to brownie recipe in the future.